http://www.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~nyrensse/deaths2.htm http://www.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~nyrensse/deaths3.htm http://www.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~nyrensse/deaths5.htm The preface to the typescript edited by Milton Thomas, only summarized above, includes the following that I transcribed from the copy in the State Library: > These records were discovered and copied around 1915 by the writer’s friend, Frank Warner Thomas, a prominent Troy lawyer and historian, and were lent to the writer in 1921. The records as found were on sheets of paper and were carelessly kept on a dusty shelf in the cellar of the Rensselaer County Court House at Troy. The records were kept in accordance with Chapter 152 of the laws of 1847 of the State of New York: “An act providing for the registry of births, marriages and deaths.” This law was passed 28 April 1847. It required that the records be kept by the clerks of the various school districts, and turned over by them to the town clerks, who in turn were to send them to the Secretary of State. What was left of them was then to be turned over to the Legislature. This law was soon ignored, but not repealed until 17 February 1909, when Chapter 49 of the Laws of 1909 was passed. The only other county known to the writer to possess any records kep! t under this law is Suffolk, although they may exist elsewhere. The present law under which vital statistics are kept was passed about 1882. To go back, however, --- the room in which these records were found is partly lined with old bookcases and cabinets filled with dusty books and legal papers. An effort was made in the early part of 1922 to find the originals, but among that mass of old papers it was impossible to locate them. This is greatly to be regretted, for Mr Frank Thomas’s copy is unfortunately very poorly typewritten; it was probably run off in great haste, and there are many queer spellings which may or may not be typographical errors. Most of these spellings have been retained, but when it was quite evident that Mr Thomas had struck the wrong key, the writer did not hesitate to make the necessary correction. > On the 24th of March, 1922, Mr Frank Thomas was run down by an automobile truck as he left a street car, and he died April 3rd as a result of his injuries. Troy was thus deprived of an honored citizen, a skilful and successful title lawyer, and a painstaking historian and genealogist. > As to the records themselves, they are a valuable contribution to the genealogical literature of this section as they cover a period for which there are no regularly recorded vital statistics, and for which the genealogist has to depend upon church records and gravestone inscriptions almost entirely. It will be noticed that no distinction is made in the records between married and single women. > One of the chief values of these records willbe that of an index to the death notices published in the local newspapers, of which the Troy Public Library has a large and valuable collection. The marriages and births found with these deaths will be made into other volumes shortly. The writer also expects to copy the deaths and marriages affixed to the census rolls now in the cellar room where this material was found. The NYS Library catalog does include an entry for “Vital records of Rensselaer County, New York: births 1846-1850” and “Vital records of Rensselaer County, New York: marraiges 1846-1850, 1874-1881", which I’ll have to look for next time I’m there. Though I’d doubt if in 2014 the papers found by Frank Warner Thomas in 1915 are still around when they could not even be relocated in 1922, one wishes that a search of old records and an inventory of the old records could be accomplished. If only the New York State Historical Records Survey Project still existed! It was one of the many beneficial projects that existed under the Works Progress Administration. As a NYSL catalog entry states of the project: > The survey of county records reached different stages of completion in different counties. Inventories for six counties were published: Albany, Broome, Cattaraugus, Chautauqua, Chemung, and Ulster. The following county offices were included in the survey: board of supervisors; courts (civil and criminal); county clerk; surrogate; children’s court; commissioner of jurors; sheriff; district attorney; county attorney; probation officer; county treasurer; comptroller; auditor; purchasing agent; commissioner of public welfare; tuberculosis hospital; county nurse; county laboratory; county veterinarian; highway department; board of elections; sealer of weights and measures; alcoholic beverage control board; farm bureau; home bureau; and 4-H club. Chris

Rensselaer County Vital Records http://www.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~nyrensse/rcvitals.htm They seem to have thoroughly transcribed the data from "Vital Records of Rensselaer County, New York. Deaths 1847-1851”, putting it in an order (the typescript in the library seems practically random). However, “Vital records of Rensselaer County, New York: births 1846-1850” and “Vital records of Rensselaer County, New York: marraiges 1846-1850, 1874-1881” don’t appear to have been transcribed. I’ll take digital photos of those next time I’m there - maybe today? Something else the GenWeb wasn’t able to complete was the “Index to Some Deaths Appearing in Lansingburgh Newspapers, 1787-1850” http://www.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~nyrensse/obits1.htm That info came “from Vol. 23, Nos. 2 and 3 and from Vol. 24, No. 3 of Tree Talks, published by the Central New York Genealogical Society in September 1983 and 1984.” They didn’t have access to “the issues of Tree Talks containing surnames A-L, nor issues containing surnames after Young”. Those would be worth finding! Possibly, though, that’s the TIGS project in the works “Deaths & Marriages - 1787-1895 From 10 Lansingburgh Newspapers”? Chris